A video that was released Feb. 29 contains footage of a South Carolina State Trooper using racial slurs to African-Americans from 2004 and 2007. In the footage a SC trooper states,

"You better run, n-----, because I'm fixing to kill you,"

to a African-American male he was chasing. After a confrontation and struggle between the two, the man repeatedly asked the trooper,

"Why are you beating me."

The trooper then responds that he was resisting arrest. This recording is one of two incidents released Friday. After Govenor Mark Sanford viewed the film, the director of the State Department of Public Service and the commander of Highway Patrol resigned. The troopers in both videos were not fired but received 12-hour suspensions. The Black Caucus feels that the punishment the troopers received is not enough.

These sorts of violent racist acts have been occurring for so long, and from so many locales. Even when individual officers are fired, it does nothing to correct the systemic conditions that continue to lead officers to think it is okay for them to behave like gangstas. Even when such officers are fired, and/or go to jail, most of their fellow officers continue to treat them like heros. They go to each other's trials, and stand outside in uniform when indicted cops enter and leave the court room just to make use the gangsta cops, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC, understand that the force has every intention to continue doing business as usual.

The entire system is designed, I would say purposely, to convince the officers who remain on the force that such behavior is not only okay, but necessary and admirable.